Record a customer credit from a deposit

Sometimes a customer pays you money that isn't income: they pay the same invoice twice, they send a payment with nothing outstanding behind it, or they pay a deposit you haven't billed yet. That money is in your bank, but it is owed back to them. Recording it as a customer credit says exactly that.

1. On Ledger › Banking › Transactions, find the deposit that arrived and open its details with the chevron at the start of the row.
2. Under Change what this is, click Customer credit.
3. Pick the customer it belongs to and click OK. If they aren't in your client list yet, choose + New client…, type their name, and the same OK creates the client and records the credit in one step. You can fill in their details later on Invoicing › Clients.

The line shows a Credited ↪ chip, and the customer now carries that credit balance. Its Category column names Customer Credits, the account the money went to, in grey italics; there is no category to fill in. To reverse it, open the details again and click Undo customer credit.

Why this isn't a credit note

A credit note reverses a sale: it takes the revenue back off your books and reverses the sales tax with it. A duplicate payment is not a sale being returned. The sale, if there was one, was already recorded once and is correct. So recording a customer credit deliberately moves no revenue and no sales tax. It only records that you are holding their money.

Giving the money back, or using it up

Once the credit exists you have two ways to clear it:

• They want the money back. Find the withdrawal where you sent it, open its details, and click Credit refund under Change what this is, then pick the same customer. Their credit goes back to zero and the two bank lines cancel out. Both steps work on bank lines in your book's own currency; a foreign-currency line is refused rather than recorded at the wrong value.
• They'd rather it come off their next bill. Apply the credit to an open invoice from the invoice itself. The credit covers part or all of the balance.

When an online payment arrives for an invoice that isn't open

A customer can pay from their portal link through Stripe or Square after nothing was left to pay: a checkout they opened before you cancelled the invoice, or a second checkout they opened before the first payment went through. That includes an invoice whose only unpaid part is a holdback that is not due yet. An online payment never marks a cancelled invoice paid, and never pays an invoice a second time. The money has already moved, though, so TALISK_HQ records it and holds all of it as that client's customer credit:

• The invoice stays as it was: still cancelled, or paid once, with any holdback still to come.
• The payment shows in the invoice's Payments section, and the client now carries that credit balance. If Stripe or Square kept a fee, the fee is booked as a processing fee and the credit is still the full amount the customer paid.
• A card in Ledger › Health names the client, the invoice, how much came in, the date and whether it was Stripe or Square.

Check with Stripe or Square that the payment went through, then settle it with the customer: open one of their open invoices and use Apply credit, or refund it. A refund you send from your bank account is recorded with Credit refund on that withdrawal, as described above. Then dismiss the card.

Sometimes TALISK_HQ cannot record such a payment when it arrives: today's period is locked, the book's chart of accounts is not set up, or the invoice has no client or is in another currency. The payment then waits on the invoice as a pending payment, and a card in Ledger › Health lists every checkout waiting there with its amount and date. A checkout the customer opened and never finished looks the same, so check the payment in Stripe or Square first. If it completed and nothing is owed for it, refund it from the Stripe or Square dashboard. Once it is refunded, or if the checkout was never finished, click Reject on the pending payment. Confirming a payment like this is refused: TALISK_HQ does not record it by hand.

A Square payment is recorded only once Square has completed it. A card payment Square has only authorized is not money in your account yet, so it waits until Square completes it, and one that Square cancels or declines is never recorded.

Why recording it matters

If you leave the duplicate deposit and the money you sent back both uncategorized, your books look right only because the two cancel out. In between them, which can be weeks and can cross a month end, your cash balance is understated by the full amount. Recording both puts the money in the bank on the day it arrived and takes it out on the day it left, so a month-end or year-end report in that window is correct.